Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

(än`drə prä`dāsh), state (2011 pop. 49,386,799), 61,855 sq mi (160,205 sq km), SE India, on the Bay of Bengal. The state was created in 1956 from the Telugu-speaking portions of Madras (now Tamil Nadu) and Hyderabad states. In 2014 the northwestern portion of the state was separated as the state of TelanganaTelangana,state (2011 pop. 35,286,757), 44,340 sq mi (114,840 sq km), S central India. Created in 2014 from NW Andhra Pradesh, it is bordered by Maharashtra (N), Chhattisgarh and Odisha (NE), Andhra Pradesh (SE and S), and Karnataka (W)......Click the link for more information.. The capital is HyderabadHyderabad, former princely state, S central India. The former princedom of Hyderabad is now divided among the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana. The Mughal empire conquered Hyderabad in the late 17th cent......Click the link for more information., which is now located in Telangana; it will be joint capital of the two states for 10 years. A new capital for Andhra Pradesh is planned for Amaravati, in the central section of the state. Andhra Pradesh is largely on a coastal plain drained by the Penner, Krishna, and Godavari rivers. Rice, sugarcane, peanuts, and cotton are raised; coal, chrome, and manganese are mined. India's largest shipyard is located in VishakhapatnamVishakhapatnamor Visakhapatnam, city (1991 pop. 1,057,118), Andhra Pradesh state, SE India, a port on the Bay of Bengal. Established by the British in the 17th cent......Click the link for more information., and a satellite launch center is on Sriharikota island in the southeast. The state takes its name from the Andhra people, the indigenous inhabitants of the area. After the state's creation, there was sentiment in the section that had been part of Hyderabad in favor of a separate state, and recurring strikes and demonstrations on the issue at times have led to deadly violence. In 2009 the Indian government announced it would began the process of creating the state of Telangana, but it then backtracked in the face of opposition. In 2013, however, the government agreed to a proposal for formation of the state. Andhra Pradesh is governed by a chief minister and cabinet responsible to a bicameral legislature with one elected house and by a governor appointed by the president of India.

Andhra Pradesh

a state in eastern India, on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. Its area is 275,300 sq km, and its population is 39 million (1965), chiefly Andhra (Telugu). The religion is Hinduism. The capital is Hyderabad.

Natural features. In the eastern part of the state, abutting the slightly dissected lagoon shoreline of the Bay of Bengal, is a coastal alluvial depression 20–180 km wide, with deltas of the Godavari, Kistna, Penner, and other rivers, fertile soils (mainly alluvial), and a moist tropical climate (rainfall up to 1,500 mm each year, with the greatest amount usually from October to December, associated with the northeastern monsoons). The northern part of the depression is bounded on the west by sections of the Eastern Ghats (elevation to 1,680 m). The rest of the inland territory of Andhra Pradesh is taken up by the Deccan Plateau (elevations predominantly 200–700 m). The uphill sloping lowlands alternate with separate mountain ranges (Velikonda, elevation to 1,105 m; Nallamalai; and others). The area has a tropical monsoon climate, with a strongly pronounced, arid winter and a relatively moist summer; annual rainfall is 500–850 mm. Red gravelly soils and regurs predominate; there are xerophytic shrub thickets and isolated large, sparse monsoon forests.

Economy. Andhra Pradesh is the traditional rice bowl of India (crops are cultivated mainly in the coastal lowlands; the harvest yields more than 5 million tons, or 10–12 percent of the total Indian production) and a chief producer of tobacco (cultivated in the Kistna and Godavari deltas; half of the country’s harvest, mainly Virginia tobaccos). Andhra Pradesh accounts for approximately 10 percent of the sugarcane harvest and about 15 percent of the millet, 50 percent of the castor oil plant production, 14 percent of the peanut yield, and about 3–4 percent of the cotton crop. Crops take up 42 percent of the area of the state (more than 11 million hectares), and about 25 percent of it is irrigated by canals. The Tungabhadra, Nagarjunasagar, Pochampad, and Kadam hydroelectric power stations, including irrigation canals, are being constructed.

Andhra Pradesh is first in sheep-raising in India, with 8.4 million—more than 20 percent of the general livestock—and second in water buffalo, with approximately 7 million.

Among the Indian states, Andhra Pradesh has the greatest number of agricultural workers (5.2 million in 1961); agrarian reforms have not eliminated landlords’ property rights.

Industry in Andhra Pradesh is poorly developed (5.5 percent of the factory workers and 3.5 percent of the country’s industrial revenues). Industrial manufacturing companies employ 234,000 people (1962); 1.8 million—the largest number in India—are engaged in light domestic industry. The traditional branches of industry are tobacco (almost 40 percent of the factory workers in the state), food (rice milling, production of vegetable oils, sugar, and others), textiles (more than 10 percent of the workers)—primarily spinning in industrial manufacturing enterprises; and weaving (mainly woolen fabrics) among home workers. The silver filigree work is well known. Mineral and forest resources are continuing to be more widely developed. Coal is the major product of the mining industry. In the Singareni coalfields in the northern part of the state, approximately 4.3 million tons of coal are mined (1966/67). The construction of the thermoelectric power stations at Ramagundam (100 megawatts) and Kottagudem (240 megawatts) and the hydroelectric power stations in the basins of the Godavari (Machkund, Upper and Lower Sileru) and the Kistna (Srisailam, Nagarjunasagar, Tungabhadra) is aiding the transformation of Andhra Pradesh into an important energy-producing region. Andhra Pradesh yields one-third of the total mica output (Nellore district) and almost all of the barite; asbestos, calcite, iron, and manganese ores are mined here; and salt is extracted along the seacoast. Machine-building, shipbuilding (at Vishakhapatnam), heavy power equipment and machine-tool production (Hyderabad), chemical, petrochemical (at the oil refinery in Vishakhapatnam), coal chemistry (Kottagudem), synthetic chemico-pharmaceutical drug production, and paper and cement industries are being created; an installation for the production of uranium and fuel elements is under construction (Hyderabad).

G. V. SDASIUK

Andhra Pradesh

a state of SE India, on the Bay of Bengal: formed in 1953 from parts of Madras and Hyderabad states. Capital: Hyderabad. Pop.: 75 727 541 (2001). Area: about 275 068 sq. km (106 204 sq. miles)

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